Jacqueline Patterson
Carnot Prize Recipient
2024
Jacqueline Patterson is the recipient of the 2024 Carnot Prize and is the founder and executive director of The Chisholm Legacy Project, a resource hub for Black frontline climate justice leadership. The mission of the Chisholm Legacy Project is rooted in a Just Transition Framework, serving as a vehicle to connect Black communities on the frontlines of climate justice with the resources to actualize visions. She is also a Kleinman Center Senior Fellow.
Prior to the launch of the Chisholm Legacy Project, Patterson served as the senior director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program for over a decade. During her tenure, she founded and implemented a robust portfolio which included serving the state and local leadership whose constituencies consisted of hundreds of communities on the frontlines of environmental injustice. She led a team in designing and implementing a portfolio to support political education and organizing work executed by NAACP branches, chapters, and state conferences.
Patterson has dedicated her career to intersectional approaches to systems change. Working with frontline communities from Kampala, Uganda to Kansas City, USA to Kingston, Jamaica, her passion for social justice led her to serve as coordinator & co-founder of Women of Color United; Senior Women’s Rights Policy Analyst for ActionAid; Assistant Vice-President of HIV/AIDS Programs for IMA World Health, Outreach Project Associate for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Research Coordinator for Johns Hopkins University, and U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Jamaica.
Patterson holds a master’s degree in social work from the University of Maryland and a master’s degree in public health from Johns Hopkins University. She currently serves on the Advisory Boards for Center for Earth Ethics, Environmental Justice Movement Fellowship, and the Hive Fund for Gender and Climate Justice, on the Governance Assemblies for Mosaic Momentum, and Collectrify, as well as on the Boards of Directors for the Institute of the Black World, the Bill Anderson Fund, Movement Strategy Center, the Just Solutions Collective, the National Black Workers Center Project, and Ceres.